Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Hussein to sign "National Service" bill

What a winner we have in this one. Here is a link to one story about this nonsense. Here is a link to the text of the bill, soon to be law.

To quote from the news article: " . . . Obama is scheduled to sign Tuesday to foster and fulfill people's desire to make a difference, such as by mentoring children, cleaning up parks or building and weatherizing homes for the poor." Wow. Just think of all those people who wanted to help clean up parks and weatherize homes for the poor, but didn't realize they could. I can see them now in the park, wanting to pick up that old beer can but not realizing that it would be allowed. Now, thanks to Hussein, they know they can pick up that beer can without being thrown in jail and it will only cost us $5.7 billion. We know it will really cost much more than that, but why mention it?

Here is another good bit from the article: "Bolstering voluntary public service programs has been a priority of Obama, who credits his work as a community organizer in his early 20s for giving him direction in life." I don't even know what to say to that, except that if Hussein being a "community organizer" led the nation to where we are now I think we could do with a fewer community organizers. Maybe he should have gotten a job instead.

Let's go on: "It outlines five broad categories where people can direct their service: helping the poor, improving education, encouraging energy efficiency, strengthening access to health care and assisting veterans." I guess until this bill is signed it would be against the law to help the poor (whatever that means), or encourage energy efficiency or assist vets. I think the price of energy is a pretty good encouragement towards energy efficiency. My dad and I once helped a disabled vet who was having trouble getting his wheelchair up a hill to the entrance of a gun show. Seems all the guns he was taking into the show weighed more than he thought they would and the additional weight made for some tough going. Was that illegal then? It must have made us right wing extremists.

Then we get to this mess: "

The bill also ties volunteer work to money for college.

People 55 and older could also earn $1,000 education awards by getting involved in public service. Those awards can be transferred to a child, grandchild or even someone they mentored.

Students from sixth grade through senior year of high school could earn a $500 education award for helping in their neighborhoods during a new summer program." I'll bet most people 55 and older could find a way to earn more money in less time if they thought about it. I guess I don't know the details - maybe you can get the $1000 for spending 15 minutes protesting outside a company that refuses to take bailout money from the government.

My favorite part: "The bill is named for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass." It should have been called the "I'm a wealthy drunk and think it's ok to leave someone to drown in my car while I go back to the party" bill. I wonder if leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to drown was helping the poor, improving education, encouraging energy efficiency, or strengthening access to health care? I'm leaning towards "improving education" because I'll bet she learned something that night.

This bill is passed with all it's flowery language about helping people while the President wants to reduce the deductions for charitable giving? It doesn't sound to me like he cares about people. It seems to me that he wants to increase the size and power of the government. If you reduce the deductions on charity then you can create a "crisis" which the government will be happy to solve.